The Queensland Reds were rewarded
for winning the Super Rugby title with 15 players called up to
the national squad as Australia seeks to take their momentum all
the way to this year’s World Cup.

A day after their 18-13 win over the seven-time champion
Crusaders in Brisbane, the Reds provided almost 40 percent of
the Wallabies’ 40-man roster for next week’s Test against Samoa
and the Tri-Nations series.

“That’s fair reward for a great performance,” Wallabies
coach Robbie Deans said yesterday at a news conference. “We
haven’t had a lot of recent success at Super Rugby level. It was
a great effort and we hope to run off that. There’s a big
overlap of people, inevitably there will be some carry-over.”

The Reds secured their first elite southern hemisphere
provincial rugby championship in the professional era two days
ago to become the first Australian winner since 2004. Queensland
had finished in the bottom three in the six seasons prior to
2009 and suffered a record 92-3 defeat to South Africa’s Bulls
four years ago, the biggest losing margin in the competition’s
16 seasons.

Reds scrum-half Will Genia dashed 65 meters for the match-
winning try to break a 13-13 tie with 12 minutes left at Suncorp
Stadium two days ago. Winger Digby Ioane went on a solo run for
the Reds’ other try and fly-half Quade Cooper kicked eight
points. Dan Carter scored all of the Crusaders’ points.

Carter was among 13 Crusaders players chosen in New
Zealand’s 30-man squad for the Tri-Nations and a Test against
Fiji on July 22. Highlanders lock Jarrad Hoeata was the only
newcomer to the All Blacks roster.

Self-Belief

Genia, who was named Australia’s Super Rugby Player of the
Year last month, said he and his teammates would try to infuse
their title-winning confidence in the Wallabies squad.

“It’s just all about self-belief,” Genia told reporters.
“Look at the Reds, who would have thought two years ago we
would have won that title, or even last year, or even the start
of the year. If we can take that belief in there to the core
group it will go a long way towards hoping to be successful.”

Australia is scheduled to name its 30-man squad for the
Sept. 9-Oct. 23 World Cup in New Zealand on Aug. 18, midway
through the Tri-Nations.

Only once has the same country produced the Super Rugby and
World Cup champion in the same year, when the Bulls took the
2007 provincial title and the Springboks won the Webb Ellis Cup
in France.

‘Sense of Foreboding’

Still, the Reds’ victory signals that Australia will be a
major threat to tournament favorite New Zealand’s chances of a
first World Cup victory since 1987, former All Blacks said.

“While the Crusaders were a bit off-key in a tense,
emotion-filled Super Rugby final, I now have a deep sense of
foreboding as to what this means come September and October,”
Justin Marshall, who played 81 Tests for New Zealand, wrote in
today’s Dominion Post. “We need to be wary of their raw talent
and potential.”

Before opening their campaign for a third World Cup
victory, the Wallabies will try to break their Bledisloe Cup and
Tri-Nations droughts as they take on New Zealand and South
Africa home and away.

“We haven’t won the Bledisloe Cup since 2002, we haven’t
won the Tri-Nations since 2001 and we want to win both of them
and we want to go to New Zealand with more momentum,” John O’Neill, chief executive officer of the Australian Rugby Union,
told reporters yesterday. “Last night we added some momentum
and one would hope we carry that through to the World Cup.”

Three Rookies

Reds flanker Beau Robinson, hooker James Hanson and New
South Wales Waratahs lock Sitaleki Timani were the three rookies
in the Wallabies squad. The Waratahs, who lost in the Super
Rugby qualifying finals, had the second biggest representation
of Australia’s five teams with 11 players.

Radike Samo, a 35-year-old backrower, was recalled for the
first time since 2004 after joining the Reds late last season as
injury cover and getting a full-time contract this year.

“Seven years after he first played Test matches, he has
got into good shape physically and has shown that he still has
an appetite for rugby at this level,” Deans said of Samo.

Selectors retained Rocky Elsom as captain even though he
only played one match for the ACT Brumbies in an injury-plagued
season. Former Wallabies skippers Stirling Mortlock and Phil Waugh were omitted.

This year’s truncated international season will make it
difficult for players to break into the squad, Deans said.

“It is a short window this year,” he said. “There isn’t
much opportunity for experimentation. Those in the 40 have the
much greater opportunity to press their claims for down the
track, the World Cup.”